The State Department is being decapitated and depleted at a dizzying
speed. That's the headline for the Washington Post. Hi I'm Scott Ott with
Bill Whittle and Stephen Green. This episode of Right Angle's brought to you
by the members at BillWhittle.com. Well men, a Washington Post columnist named
Joe Davidson quotes Barbara Stevenson, who is the American Foreign Service
President, kind of the you know Union boss I guess you say it that way
although technically probably not a union, and she says this and I quote
from the Washington Post, the ranks of career ministers, our three star
equivalents, are down from 33 in June of 2016 to 19. The ranks of our two-star
minister counselors have fallen from 431 right after Labor Day to 369 today and
they're still falling. The Post says that the entry level or
the columnist in the post anyway says that the entry level Stevenson expects
about a hundred new foreign service officers to join the State Department
next year, compared with 366 in 2016. Here's a quote from Stephenson she says
these numbers are hard to square with the stated agenda of making the State
Department and the Foreign Service stronger, she said, calling the cuts a
decapitation to its leadership ranks. Now Stephen Green if you are going to do
what President Trump says we're going to do and have a robust foreign policy and
foster respect for American exceptionalism around the world, how can
you do so without a robust State Department? Well there are two
parts to that question and the first is State Department is about as useless
as blank on a snake all right? We just we know that yeah legs thank you
clean that up for me. Listen we have needed an imaginative State Department since
approximately noon on September 11, 2001 and that's a long time ago now,
all right? There's 16 years ago now and instead we still have the same stale
people from the same stale schools taught by the same stale people and its we
do not have the State Department that this country needs in a world that is
fast moving, fast changing, and extremely, in parts of it anyway, increasingly
dangerous. The nice safe parts are still the nice safe parts but the Georgetown
crowd doesn't seem to understand that that approach that works in Berlin,
Brussels, or even Beijing, does not work in Raqqa or in Tehran, so number one.
Number two is we could use a much smaller State Department. That's
fine you know corporations shed white-collar workers like crazy
starting in the early 90s with with real computerization and they're
stronger for it not weaker, stronger. The problem in state isn't that they're
they're all these empty desks.. we could use more empty desks.. the problem is
we've got too many obama holdovers and you want to talk about this but the drabbest
most stale thinkers around. Eight years of that stuff and they're still
entrenched. If Rex Tillerson wants to have a meaningful tenure at State, it's
not that he has to hire a bunch of new people, it's that he's got a fire those
Obama holdovers and I don't understand what's taking him so long.
Well you know the State Department data indicates that there are 13,873
Foreign Service employees today compared to 13,980 in 2016 so you know Bill
Whittle the US Foreign Service is down to its last
13,873 employees. I thought President Trump wanted to Make America
Great Again! This woman writes about all this stuff like it's a bad thing.
I don't really know what I can say that didn't get covered by Steve. Obviously a
State Department needs a certain amount of personnel. I suspect 13 thousand's a
little high. The fact that a career bureaucrat in the federal government is
lamenting the fact that fewer bureaucrats are coming into the federal
government is to me welcome news and and terrific. I suspect and this is a
this is a part I think is actually a little interesting. I
suspect that what's happening to State is a mirror of what happened to Defense
under Obama and likewise the current situation at Defense is somewhat similar
to what State was under Obama. People were forced out of the military during
the Obama Presidency. They weren't just cashiered a few of
them were simply just cashiered but basically what they did was they tried
everything they could to make it intolerable for an honorable warfighter
to remain in the Defense Department, either as a serving soldier in the field
or as any kind of upper level officer. They made it so antithetical to what
they were trained to do and what they believed their mission is that the best
the best soldiers we had just left they haven't come back. If that is what's
happening at State then that's nothing but good news because the people who are
leaving and the people who would normally come in and are not coming in
are the people that have allowed North Korea eight years of nuclear development.
They're the people that put 800 million dollars on a pallet and flew it to the
to the Iranians for them to use to develop their nuclear weapons. This is
the same State Department that basically lost the won war in Iraq, same State
Department that's done all of these horrible things, just useless,
worthless diplomats of a philosophy as you said of a philosophy that is just
simply so outdated it's not it's not eight years old it's I almost said it
was a hundred years old going back to the progressive movement but essentially
it's timeless this belief that if we're nice to people who are enemies who live
in in dominance based societies, this belief that if we're nice to bullies and
tyrants undoubtedly goes back to Babylon I just has to and and to get rid of
people like that is a is actually not only good for American diplomacy, it's
also making all of us safer because look, I would rather have a situation that's
handled by State then rather than by Defense in terms of the you know if
there's a pressing crisis. If we can keep it to diplomatic terms that's better for
everybody but the Department of State and the
Department of Defense both need to be going in the same direction and that is
looking out for the vital interests of the United States against implicable
enemies who will not ever surrender their cause of destroying freedom, so if you
want to get rid of all the people that don't believe in this pretty simple
stuff, then I think that's just a I think it's a blessing. Goodbye, good riddance,
and take your attitude with you. You know you're in a bad situation during the
Obama Administration when the Secretary of State was not even as smart as Gollum.
I mean at least Gollum understood we be nice to them if they be nice to us. I
will say that the I will say that the former Secretary of State wasn't as
lifelike or realistic looking as Gollum. It's amazing things they can do with CGI
these days. Well you know there is a there's a title 22 in the US Code
section 2651 under the topping topic of Foreign Relations and intercourse
chapter 38 and it says this. Establishment of Department of State;
there shall be at the seat of government an executive department to be known as
the Department of State and a Secretary of State who shall be the head thereof
and that's it and frankly when it comes to staffing I think that's that's fine
right there. I mean there's there's the Secretary of State what else do you need.
and in fact I can't remember the exact number but I know the number of is less
than four in the State Department when Thomas Jefferson was Secretary of State.
Now there are only 13 states back then and now there are like four times that
many so if he needs to have 16 staff members at the State Department that's
fine with me too. You just know that the disease that's going on at the
State Department and elsewhere in the federal government when you read a quote
like this and this was also from that same Washington Post story reflecting
declining spirits at State. One longtime foreign service officer decided to quit
because she no longer feels appreciated, let alone indispensable. She's it's not
over yet she's still on the payroll so she spoke anonymously to
not be identified. So she's not feeling appreciated,
she's not feeling indispensable anymore, but she will cash the check and I think
that there are too many rent-seeking bureaucrats in the organization already
and in in all seriousness thirteen thousand eight hundred and
seventy three staff people to represent the United States around the world.
You would think among thirteen thousand eight hundred and seventy three or
actually eight hundred and ninety something during the Obama
Administration, there would be maybe one of them who spoke Russian well enough to
spell reset correctly, is it possible? I measure
the results not the input. If you say well to have a strong foreign policy we
need to have fourteen thousand State Department employees no no. To have a
strong foreign policy we need to have peace because our enemies fear us and
our allies respect us and I don't care if that takes four people like it did
under Thomas Jefferson's leadership or fourteen thousand people but I suspect
it's a number closer to four than to fourteen thousand. For Bill Whittle
Stephen Green and the entire Right Angle team, I'm Scott Ott. Thanks to the members
at BillWhittle.com for making this possible.
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